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Chrome TV ads – “Browser Wars” Episode 2011 “Attack of the Chromes”

Chrome is the last from “big browsers” to join the race for market share and since 2009 thanks to consecutive campaign in all sorts of media from 0% it went to 20%. Of course this shows power of Google money and Google infrastructure.

Chrome similar to Firefox picked up first users from web related industries. Based on Safari engine it offered plethora of tools for webmasters in original installation. Without add ons people were able to check uploading times inspect web design elements and code in user friendly manner. Application was lightweight to download, start and offered revolutionary tab system where each tab created separated browser window – when drag and drop is there people like it.

There was no more need for multiple bars and boxes – one bar to search write web address it ticked all the boxes in efficiency and user interface simplicity.
And guess what? – It was good enough to change the way browsers operate – two years on we have Firefox 4.0 and IE9 and they all look this same (Safari of course being Chrom’s “mother and father” always looked similar ):

Lightweight design, one box and more internal tools. Only my lovely Opera suffers – with its 3% market share (unchanged for last few years) loved by hardcore group of nerds and unaware users with once great OperaMini for mobile devices seems to fight back with latest 11 version to regain its status of the most edgy browser.

The latest Chrome Ads in UK TV feature new Chrome logo 2011 and several other services it looks like for a moment Google forgot about OS for PC (they’re happy with Android) and try to launch Chrome as one stop shop for internet users (despite the platform). Apart from Chrome features we see all Google arsenal: YouTube, Gmail, Picassa etc, etc
As a viewer you are taken through the journey of email creation by “Daddy” the Google Way, You may have also seen this ad playing at the beginning of Youtube videos.

Google has also aired ads during the Superbowl in the US featuring Lady Gaga.

With growing importance of cloud services for hi-tech giants we see here modular marketing in its best form

TV Ads for software are a very effective way of Gaming the industry. Among browsers creators the first to realise how powerful it is was Mozilla Foundation in 2006 shifting its market share to about 20% followed by folks from Opera with their Mobile version in 2008. Microsoft as usual “slow burner” regarding web related affairs realised TV is a way to go when Chrome was in still in it’s infancy. But for IE8 the 2009 TV campaign was a battle to keep market share while for Chrome it was start of effective offensive.

It looks like 2 in years on Chrome gained 20% of the market most of this market unfortunately half of this was taken from Firefox and only about half from IE. Apart from TV Ads and great push this advance of other browsers on the market comes from legal action agains Microsoft which resulted in need for Microsoft to offer other browser options instead of forcing all windows users to use IE.

Choose your side in Browser Wars!

Whatever happens next we are glad to see broader adoption of CSS3 and HTML5 which makes modular online marketing simply easier.

Unfortunately there is also the dark side of “browser wars” (“Microsoft strikes back”). The way Microsoft works removes chance for a lot of people to see web in its latest format. Without automated updates for IE many users experience web as it was back in 2005. IE6 remains the only window to internet for about 10% of users (mostly corporate).

We hope this nightmare will be over soon although with IE7 being better than IE8 we are frightened to see IE 10 :-S